2012-Backyard plants- 3

My first cutouts from my plants. A small bunch of chikudukayalu, one brinjal, and some fresh green thotakura.

 My first capsicum coming up on the plant.

 fresh green sourgreens (gongura).

 Bhendi..

 worth the price is my new mandaram plant. It gives me this mandaram almost everyday from the day I bought it. Although it is annual plant I hope it stays with me (with a little maintenance).

These are the flowers from my perennial mandaram tree. Which we planted from last year. The flowers when compared to regular oneare even bigger and darker. I love them... helps me do puja :).

Roses

2012-Backyard plants - 2

The grown plants from our first plant bed beside our patio. Although picture is not clear.. I can upload a better one later on. There are Tomato plants, Bitter gourd(karela, kakarakaya), Methi, Chukka kura and etc.

 The following is the first city pickers I planted seedlings this season and look how tall they became. I am happy to see the fruit coming soon :). After all.... seeing something growing nicely (good results) is a big reward of what you do. I mean efforts being paid.

 This is the second one in which I planted Gongura (Sour greens), Brinjal and capsicum plants. Looks like they are also coming along nicely too. I am glad.

 This is the new plant bed we made in our backyard (where the sun shines fully). I planted bhendi (okra, bendakaya), Brinjal(eggplant, vankaya, baigan) and a lot of others, which I feel are amaranth (thotakura). I just need to wait and see how these turns out.

2 braids goes to one - Hairstyle-3

This hairstyle can be for kids as well as for adults too. Nice and easy and probably lot of people already know it. Go for it and add your own accessories to the style to make it look much more cute :). All you have to do it, make a small divider to seperate the hair in two sets in the front and pick some part of the front hair and make two separate braids. Now join them to make one braid at the back. 

As mentioned earlier I can only these styles for my 3 year old when I apply nice oil to her hair (because of silky nature and maintenance ofcourse for a 3 year old). luckily for me, she is not making her hair big mess now-a-days as before. so it stays for a longer time, before it needed one more time braiding.

Strawberry picking (2012-May)

The Strawberries we picked at the farm (and a couple of cherries too). 

 My kids also had fun feeding the goats too.

 A couple of shots of cherry tree:

Backyard plants - 2012

My plant bed from last year has Methi plants, 4 tomato plants and 4 karela. Also it has some spinach too. I wil update photos as they grow younger and ripe stage :).

 Spinach and Strawberry... I planted them in the window boxes so that strawberry has some place to spread itself.

 Dhaniya - Kothimeeru..... who doesnt love the smell and taste of fresh coriander leaves. That too made from our kitchen coriander seeds :)...

 my small plant box.. ready seedlings to be planted and some still waiting to sprout up. I had cucumber, Chikkudukaya (broad beans), Gongura(sour greens), Thotakura(amaranth leaves), Bhendi (okra) sprouted up already. Still waiting on Sorakaya, beerakaya, capsicum and green chillies. Hopefully they will show up...

My Tulasi plant from last year. Thank you so much pinni for giving me this. Thank you for tulasi maa.. for staying with me :).

 More seedlings.... mostly are spinach, tomato...

 Eggplant planted in pot (bought from store)

 Tomato seedlings planted in ground.

 Karela (bitter gourd) seedlings planted in ground.

 Chikkudukaya (broad beans) seedlings planted in ground

Spring photos of 2012 - 1

Mar 2012 - Lalitha puja

March 2012 - Lalitha puja performed by our community ladies at my aunt's home this time. Photos of ammavaru and food items (potluck items). Take the blessings and have fun eye feast...

Kids storage boxes made out of paper box

we always buy lot of stuff for kids. We wish/.want to store all the memories around them. However sometimes we spend a lot of money on something which we feel can be a fun art project at home with kids. This weekend, as we had a little time, I planned to do some stuff for kids at home along with them. This way I can customize it according to my needs, make them decorated  the way kids want it and voila... here goes one fun thing at home. Made totally from materials at home/office. We are currently storing my kids preschool stuff, his art work and writing and my girl's art work inside it (she does not go to preschool yet :) ) Here goes the story on how I did it:

My husband got couple of the paper boxes, which are generally lying around at work - to be recycled or to be trashed. We had a little Flouroscent construction paper and lot of gift wrapping stuff lying around in home. Instead of storing kids art work and their writing in a box or something which we do not even touch nor the kids will have any idea of how to open or to do with it, I just wrapped around gift wrap around this boxes to make it look fancy.

 First I created for my son, by giving him choice to pick up the color of gift wrap. Once the box is ready, I asked him to write his name on it. He felt very happy with it and I am planning to make him write draw stuff on top according to the items stored in it, that way we all know what is inside in it.

 A similar one made for my daughter below, from her choice of giftwrap.

Cold n Cough

Recently I have been dealing with my daughter cough especially at nights. So I thought I would post some of the cures I took at home to avoid it. This

• Honey - This is one of the best medicine to give to kids when they have cough. I know that in United States, you are not allowed to give honey to kids less than an year. So I started giving them after they are older than 1 year. It is safe and best home medicine I feel. It works for elder's too.
• Vicks and Hot water bath: If you apply vicks thoroughly to your chest, back, neck and nose and take a Warm (more than luke warm or close to hot) water bath, the vapor's go in and works the magic. Once you are out of shower, you will feel much better for hours to come and ready for the day/night. 
• Warm milk with Turmeric and black pepper - Try to have some warm milk at night with black pepper and turmeric in it. I add little honey also for taste. It works good on my throat and on my cold. 
• Steam - Take a wider bowl and heat water to a boil stage at least. Take the steam from it by closing yourself in a thick blanket/comforter before the steam. I would not suggest doing it on the stove. Remove the bowl from stove and put it down some place convenient for you. Add vicks to the boiled water so that you can have the fem melted down and feel even more better. 

Happy Sankrathi/Pongal

My Sankranthi/Pongal muggu in my garage this year:

Bommala koluvu at my home. This is my first time arranging a bommala koluvu:

Hair style - 2

Another hair style for my daughter:

I did simple two ponies for her but before that.. I took small bunch of hair from starting and made it a simple plait. I added simple butterfly clip at the end of the plait so that it stays still. Hope you will try it too. 

French Plait

Although I know how to do French plait on my own hair, I never tried it on my daughter as her hair is very short yet. I believe now it is slowly ok to do a french plait on her hair when I apply oil. Her hair is very silky so I needed to control it by aplying oil and hey it worked fine. She was able to maintain it nice for half day. hey... what can you expect from a 2 and 1/2 year old to maintain her hair in good shape :).